Advantages Of Recycling
Important Facts about the Advantages of Recycling
The world population has exceeded 6.5 billion people; a figure in itself that must demonstrate the advantages of recycling. Imagine, if you will, a landfill that contains just one piece of trash from each person on earth in one day. Multiply that figure by 365 days per year, and the picture that invokes should be one that terrifies and horrifies the average person.
There are numerous reasons that trash has become such a troubling issue. The first is the sheer number of people on earth. Another factor is the availability of virtually anything we could wish for; food, clothing, accessories, vehicles, appliances and so much more. With sanitation an ever growing concern, these items come with additional material such as plastic wrapping, cardboard containers, foam insulators, packing peanuts, bags, tags and barbs. Also to be considered is the disposable society that we have become; always desiring the new and improved model. Because of the human desire for convenience, these factors and more have developed into a disturbing trend of accumulating trash and waste.
The idea of recycling is not a new one. In ancient days when commodities were scarce, it was expected that everything would be used to its fullest, and when its use in one fashion ended, it became useful in another manner. Consider the art of hunting; not only was the meat used to sustain the hungry, but the hide was used as housing or clothing. Its entrails were used to form thread, string, binding materials, water vessels and more. Teeth, claws and horns were used for decorative purposes. Virtually nothing went to waste. House wares such as pots and dishes constructed of metal that became too worn for use would be melted down to fashion new items. Recycling wasn’t trendy; it was necessary.
During the two World Wars, recycling took on a new importance. People were expected to bring various metal items to collection centers in order to convert them into other useable items. This wasn’t considered as sacrifice, but again as necessary since all monetary focus needed to be directed to the war efforts. The means to dispose of unwanted or unused items simply did not exist at that time. In fact, landfills would not appear until the 1940’s. Along with their emergence came the freedom to use them; the ease of disposal took precedence over the advantages of recycling. The availability of new items, as well as decreasing costs of new items due to increased competition, made it suddenly easier and more appealing to simply toss away the old than to convert it into new usage. Not only did landfills quickly pile up with the discarded items, but they would be resigned to stay there for thousands of years because the materials from which they were constructed were designed not to easily decompose.
One of the biggest advantages of recycling should be the most obvious; that of saving the earth’s resources. Many of the items found in landfills contain harmful ingredients or additives that, during their useful period, gave them durability or attractiveness. Once buried under mounds of soil in the landfill, these elements leach out and become part of the soil. This contaminated soil washes away during erosion, eventually making its way into ground water or streams and rivers; adding its pollution to the water reserves.
Armed with the knowledge that trash is causing the ultimate deterioration of the earth itself, an increasing number of businesses and people are rejoining the recycling efforts. The term being “green” has become the battle cry as we attempt now to get back on the path of preserving earth’s resources through recycling efforts for future generations to come.